Thought Magazine Interview

I recall having the urge to write shortly after I learned to read. I felt an immediate connection with words and with books, and I think I started writing poetry when I was about seven. Natalie Goldberg’s book Writing Down the Bones changed my life. After reading it, I wrote my first novel - longhand on legal pads at an old maple desk in the corner of my bedroom. And since I had a habit of not finishing creative projects, I wouldn’t let myself buy another legal pad until I’d filled up every last page of the one I was working on. I was so happy when I finished it, and now that I’ve written six books, I can say there’s no greater joy than finishing writing a novel. Books bring me tremendous joy and comfort. I like having them all around me, spilling out of slanted bookcases, stacked up and down, sideways and on top, with paperbacks lining the floor around it.

I love to tell stories. Stories are what hold civilization together. They provide a written chronicle of the details of our lives and families, of what’s important to us, and of where we’ve been and where we are going. With my mystery novels, I like to give people a puzzle to solve, but a multi-layered puzzle. A good mystery should have lots of secrets, and one primary "legend" buried at the root of everything. In my novel Knee Deep, a New Mexico mystery that will be published in paperback by Port Town Publishing and released in December of 2003, I have buried lots of secrets that the main character, Leo Drucker, is trying to uncover. And what he finds at the heart of their entire investigation is a secret buried in his own past.

As a child I loved the Nancy Drew mysteries, and as a teenager I read Agatha Christie’s novels one after the other. I felt an immediate connection with Colin Dexter’s Inspector Morse. There was something so human about him – brilliant, brooding and flawed all at once. But regarding short stories, many of the Beat writers made a big impression on me, especially William Carlos Williams. He wrote about the beauty in simple things, like an old woman walking down the street carrying a spray of marigolds wrapped in crumpled newspaper, or a wildflower growing out of a crack in the sidewalk. His writings remind me that anything is possible.

Big Hands No Pockets means a great deal to me because it is based on the experiences of a real person, a friend of mine. Some details and memories from my own life are also infused in the story, like the vegetable garden. I guess it comes from the vegetable garden my grandparents had in their backyard when I was growing up. There is something very primal about planting a seed in soil and nurturing it while it grows into something. The earth or the ground, in general, is a symbol of beginnings and endings, and I think that’s what this story is about more than anything else.

This story and interview was originally published in printed form in the Spring, 2002 issue of Thought Magazine.

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